Facelift S3 - Front wheels spinning in 1st and 2nd gear - Haldex issues?

Manlikefunk

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The other night driving home I noticed it, really bad wheel spin when flooring it in 1st and 2nd. Along with a fair bit of torque steer, Kind of felt like the front wheels were skipping, really juddering, and didn't feel at all like the rears were kicking in to help shove the car forward like it used to when I first bought it. Plenty of tread on all 4 tyres.

After a bit of research I'm worried it might be a shagged Haldex system, which would likely cost about the 3rd of the price of the car itself to fix. I'm thinking this is also probably what made the car pull to the right when accelerating hard a few months ago, which originally had me thinking bad suspension bushings or tracking. I'm hoping it's just the pump anyway...

I phoned a garage in Tottenham that specialises in gearboxes, Haldex etc and they said that it won't be the Haldex if there's no engine management lights on... Is that correct? I'd read a few forum posts that say faulty haldex or haldex pump won't throw an EML, and can only be scanned on VCDS to highlight a problem? I looked in the service book and the Haldex oil hasn't been changed since some time in 2019. Jesus...
 
Maybe try and change the oil and filter as a first step? Sometimes you can get away with it. Make sure the filter is changed - most dealers will tell you there isn't a filter.
 
Maybe try and change the oil and filter as a first step? Sometimes you can get away with it. Make sure the filter is changed - most dealers will tell you there isn't a filter.

I'll try giving that a go. All I know is that the haldex has slowly/ intermittently given up the ghost: about 6-8 weeks ago it spun up badly in 2nd gear and pulled the car over to the right (only had 1 hand on the wheel), but WOT in 3rd gear was possible. And then now the last few weeks it seems to have gone completely and spins up in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear even not on WOT.

Hard to tell if that's the pump having died a slow death or just needs a service, i'll have to see what my mechanic gets from VCDS I guess.